Create Portrait Content for Digital Signs

Overview

When creating your digital sign content you must choose between landscape or portrait orientation depending on which device(s) you want you content displayed on. If you are creating content that you would like to share with others, and have the largest opportunity to display your sign amongst a wide variety of devices we suggest you create a slideshow in each orientation. As a general best-practice content originally designed for landscape (16:9) orientation should have the layout redesigned for the portrait/vertical (9:16) rather than simply rotating or stretching the existing content.

In this article

• About Content Orientation
  • Landscape orientation (16:9)
  • Portrait Orientation (9:16)
• Create Portrait Content

About Content Orientation

Landscape Orientation (16:9)

• Best for: Standard wide screen displays, general announcements
• Advantages: Matches the standard display orientation and aspect ratio used for most digital displays across the Anchorage campus.

Portrait Orientation (9:16)

• Best for: Social media feeds, vertically stacked announcements, menus, and lists.
• Advantages: Acts like a giant digital poster, matches vertical scanning habits of people walking past close-up displays.
• Limitations: Limited number of devices are currently setup in a portrait orientation across the Anchorage campus.

Create Portrait Content

Since content can be created in a wide variety of applications (e.g. Microsoft PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Sheets, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, etc.) the following will provide some general tips on creating content, and then steps for making sure the content displays correctly within the TrilbyTV system.

General Tips

• Make sure your canvas size is in a vertical (9:16 ratio) orientation.
  • If using a graphics application (e.g. Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Photo, etc.) the document size should be either 1080x1920 (1080p), or 2160x3840 (4K) pixels.
• (Re-)anchor core visual elements - such as logos, primary call-to-actions, and key text - to fit the top and middle sections of the vertical frame where natural eye-level viewing occurs.

Rotate Orentation

1. Once your content is created, export the content as either a PNG, or JPG file.
2. Open the exported image file in your preferred image editing software.
3. Rotate the graphic so the top of the image is to the left, and the bottom of the image is to the right (e.g. rotate left, Rotate 90ª counter-clockwise, Rotate 270ª clockwise).
   • Apple Preview
     1. Click Tools.
     2. Click Rotate Left (Cmd + L)
   • Affinity Photo
     1. Click Document
     2. Click Rotate 90ª Counter-clockwise​​​​​​​
   • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Microsoft Paint
     1. Select All.
     2. In the Image tool bar click the Rotate dropdown button.
     3. Select Rotate Left 90ª
4. Save the rotated image as either a PNG, or JPG file.

Next Steps

Once the digital sign content is created follow the directions in Add a Slideshow for uploading to digital sign system.

Need additional help or have issues

For support, requests may be submitted anytime using the appropriate Digital Signage form. Requests generate a Ticket which will be worked in order received and urgency by IT Employees with the knowledge and permissions to assist with the request.

For immediate assistance please review the Contact Us page for the appropriate support group.